Tight timetable incumbent aid?

The 2013 Worcester municipal election season officially kicks off at 9 a.m. Tuesday, when nomination papers become available for candidates running for City Council or School Committee.

But this election season will be markedly different from past years.

It will still be a marathon, because the preliminary and municipal elections are months away; the preliminary is scheduled for Sept. 17, and the municipal election for Nov. 5.

But the first 76 days of this election season will be a sprint of sorts. Well, maybe a brisk jog. That is how long people will have to decide if they want to run for local office and then go out and get the necessary number of signatures for their nomination papers.

That is in sharp contrast to previous years, when candidates had seven months to do all that.

Even after the seven months, they still had until mid-August to decide whether they wanted to keep their name on the municipal ballot or drop out. In most instances, that deadline was about six weeks or so before the preliminary election.

But candidates will not have so much time this year. Instead, they are going to have to make decisions about their candidacies a lot sooner.

Under the 2013 municipal election calendar adopted by the City Council this past Tuesday, City Council and School Committee candidates will have until 5 p.m. May 21 to submit their nomination papers to the Election Commission for certification of signatures.

That’s right, we’re talking only 76 days, or roughly 2-1/2 months, compared to seven months (late July deadline) that candidates had in the past.

Meanwhile, the deadline to file a withdrawal or objection to nomination of candidates with the Election Commission is 5 p.m. May 30.

All of which means that by the end of May, the fields for the City Council and School Committee contests will be set and elections officials will know if a preliminary election will have to be held in September. In the past, election officials usually didn’t know until early- to mid-August.

While all this may be great for planning purposes, questions have been raised about why city election officials and the City Council felt the need to dramatically alter the election calendar.

Some feel the compressed timetable for nomination papers gives a clear advantage to incumbents because they already have name recognition and campaign organizations in place.

City Clerk David J. Rushford, who recommended the changes, said the abbreviated timetable brings Worcester in line with most other communities in the state.

He said the fact that Worcester had traditionally let nomination papers for municipal office circulate in the community for seven months or more was far from the norm.

In Boston, for instance, nomination papers will not be available until April 30, and the deadline to turn them in is May 21. That is a mere 22 days for candidates to get their names on the ballot — less than one-third of the amount of time candidates in Worcester will have even with the new election calendar.

In Cambridge, meanwhile, candidates have only 31 days (July 1 through July 31), while in Newton they have 67 days (May 1 through July 5).

The same is the case in some area towns. In Auburn, the window for nomination papers is 62 days, while in Shrewsbury it is 55 days and in Holden it is 41.

“The changes (adopted by the City Council) reflect what the norm is statewide,” Mr. Rushford said last week. “We discovered that the seven-month window that we’ve normally had in Worcester is an aberration compared to most other communities.

“We couldn’t find another community in the state that allows nomination papers to circulate for seven months,” he added. “There’s really no need to have nomination papers out for that long.”

It is a point well taken.

Let’s face it, people who are serious about running for public office usually make up their minds to do so early in the year, so they can organize their campaigns, raise money and do all the legwork that needs to be done to get their name on the ballot.

Any serious candidate is not going to wait until July to decide to pull nomination papers. The seven-month period in Worcester tended to bring in fringe candidates late in the game.

In many instances, those 11th-hour candidates, who were long shots at best, often ended up triggering preliminary elections to trim the field of candidates for the November ballot.

What was the point?

But School Committee member Brian A. O’Connell feels the old election calendar was more realistic and fair.

He believes the compressed election schedule will preclude prospective candidates from deciding to enter a race for municipal office because they will have to make a decision on their candidacies almost six months before the municipal election.

“This is a significant retreat from the open and encouraging political process we have customarily maintained in Worcester,” Mr. O’Connell said.

Interestingly, the field for this fall’s City Council election will be set even before the council acts on a municipal budget for next fiscal year or evaluates the city manager’s job performance.

Who knows what things might happen between late May and late July that could have spurred more people to run. Then again, given the apathy toward municipal elections, would it really make a difference?

Interestingly, Councilor-at-Large Konstantina B. Lukes has filed an order for Tuesday night’s City Council meeting, calling on her colleagues to eliminate the Sept. 17 preliminary election.

There may not be a need to do that, though, because a stampede of candidates is not expected to converge on the Election Commission office Tuesday morning to get nomination papers.

Aside from the incumbents, only two people appear to be gearing up for a run for the City Council so far: Chris Rich for the District 1 seat and Michael Gaffney for an at-large seat.

For those thinking about running for City Council or School Committee, you better make up your mind soon and head down to the Election Commission office for nomination papers. There is little time to waste this year.

Contact Nick Kotsopoulos at nkotsopoulos@telegram.com.

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